Outside Commenters

"This is an extremely important paper which shows not only the serious problems that fisheries are
facing, but affords sensible insights into the way these problems need to be addressed, not just by
scientific input, but by political will. The importance of fisheries to the world economy is often
underestimated, but in terms of world production of livestock in agriculture, fisheries is a very
substantial proportion of that production. It is therefore imperative, in a world with an increasing
population, threatened by potential shortages of food, water and energy, and increasingly by
climate change, that we get the management of fisheries right. This paper is an important
contribution to that task."

"This study clearly demonstrates that in both developing and developed parts of the world, if
fishery exploitation rates are reduced sufficiently, species and their ecosystems have the capacity
to recover. The study drew together two scientific approaches, one focused on conservation of
marine communities and the other focused on the science of fishery population dynamics. The
result is a product that has profound importance in the design of management systems to achieve
diverse goals for conserving and using marine ecosystems."

"This work shows very convincingly that researchers, as a rule, understand marine ecosystems and
fisheries well enough to design effective remedies to overfishing. What is mostly lacking, and
sorely needed nowadays, is the political support to apply these remedies to the many fisheries that
still operate as if there were no tomorrow."

"At last we have a comprehensive scientific examination of the controversy that has been reverberating for the last decade about the state of fisheries in the world. That is looking backwards. And looking forward it both opens up new ecosystem-oriented methods for scientific assessment of fisheries and provides guidance and encouragement for fishing industries and regulators."

MMSY is "Multi-species maximum sustainable yield" - it is the level at which an ecosystem can maximally sustain fisheries yield across a number of species, not just one. Fishing below MMSY provides ecosystems with a chance to recover. PLEASE NOTE: Alaska (the East Bering Sea in particular) has never been fished above MMSY.

Fish Photos

Brown tiger prawn (Penaeus escutentus). Image enhanced and made available through a project jointly funded by the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and CSIRO. Credit to CSIRO.

Tiger flathead (Platycephalus richardsoni). Image enhanced and made available through a project jointly funded by the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and CSIRO. Credit to CSIRO.

Tiger flathead (Platycephalus richardsoni). Image enhanced and made available through a project jointly funded by the Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and CSIRO. Credit to CSIRO.

Small haddock, whiting and cod - often bycatch in the south North Sea. Credit to Sascha Regmann/Project Blue Sea/MarinePhotobank.

Demersal sampling nets on the deck of an Australian fishing vessel. Credit to CSIRO.

Australian fishing vessel with nets hanging to dry. Credit to CSIRO.

CSIRO's Dr. Cathy Belman inspecting a trawl of orange roughy in the Australian Fishing Zone in the late 1980s. Australia's orange roughy fishery has since been highly constrained. Credit to Rudy Kloser, CSIRO.

New Zealand fishing boats and operations. Credit to New Zealand Seafood Industry Council.

New Zealand fishing boats and operations. Credit to New Zealand Seafood Industry Council.

New Zealand fishing boats and operations. Credit to New Zealand Seafood Industry Council.

New Zealand fishing boats and operations. Credit to New Zealand Seafood Industry Council.

New Zealand fishing boats and operations. Credit to New Zealand Seafood Industry Council.